ITO America: The ROI of IP telephony management

Whether companies are just starting, continuing, or finished with their IP telephony deployments, one thing’s for certain: They need to manage these newly converged networks. They must deliver voice traffic over the IP network in a way that is consistent and predictable, with sound quality on par with or better than TDM.
 
Unlike its TDM predecessor, IP telephony is not a closed-network, single-application environment using its own network resources. Rather, IP telephony is part of an overall unified-communications infrastructure, where multiple applications compete for finite network resources. As a result, IP telephony implementations require new monitoring and management tools and skills.
 
Our organization, Nemertes Research, specializes in analyzing the business value of emerging technologies. We’ve been evaluating the operational and capital costs of IP telephony for four years. During that time, we have interviewed nearly 400 organizations.
 
Many IT managers view the task of deploying IP telephony as much easier than it actually is. Our research shows many companies don’t spend enough time evaluating management and monitoring tools, nor do they budget appropriately—until they have had enough issues to force them into a quick purchase to solve an urgent problem.
 
Download this article as published by ITO America in January 2008, authored by Robin Gareiss, executive vice president of Nemertes Research. Read the research findings and see for yourself the real return on investment of IP telephony management tools.